This invention relates to the manufacturing of can end assemblies which each include a can end and a lift tab attached to the can end.
Can top lift tabs are formed from strips of relatively thin metal stock, such as aluminum, by a press which forms the lift tabs by stamping them from a continuous strip. The strip of aluminum stock, both before and after the lift tabs are formed, remains flexible within reasonable limits. Typically, the formed tabs remain loosely attached to the strip at the point where it exits the tab press, where the lift tabs are punched out of the strip and collected in bins. The lift tabs at that time are inverted from their final orientation when attached to the can ends. The can ends are stamped out separately. Lift tabs are collected by hand from the bins, and manually inverted, then carried to another area, where they are fed by hand into chutes, which feed the individual tabs to a conversion press which attaches them to the can ends. The completed can end assemblies are later used to construct completed cans. This procedure of manually inverting the lift tabs and transporting the separated lift tabs is slow and requires an extra step in the manufacturing process. Another process is available wherein the tab press and conversion press are combined in one machine. This is expensive and does not permit the production of the lift tabs in a different location from the conversion process.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved procedure and system for inverting the lift tabs without the aforedescribed manual step.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system wherein lift tabs which are separated from the remainder of the strip are directed into position atop a can end for securement of the lift tab and can end together.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide such a system and procedure which is adaptable in an application in which lift tabs are formed in multiple numbers across the width of the strip of metal stock.